Review: ‘Evil Dead II’

More an absurdist comedy than a horror film, Evil Dead II is a flashy good-natured display of special effects and scare tactics so extreme they can only be taken for laughs.

More an absurdist comedy than a horror film, Evil Dead II is a flashy good-natured display of special effects and scare tactics so extreme they can only be taken for laughs.

Action, and there’s plenty, is centered around a remote cabin where Ash (Bruce Campbell) and girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) run into some unexpected influences. It isn’t long before the forces of the Evil Dead have got ahold of Linda and her head winds up in a vise.

It seems Prof Knowby (John Peaks) has unleashed the spirits of the dead and they want to escape limbo by claiming possession of the living. They’re a remarkably protean lot and take on all sorts of imaginative and grotesque forms almost instantaneously.

Story here is merely an excuse for director Sam Raimi to explore new ways to shock an audience and usually he keeps his sense of humor about it.